Getting charged up (click to enlarge)

Test Driving a 30 kWh 2016 LEAF December 30, 2015 Mark D Larsen

Several days ago, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that our local dealer, Stephen Wade Nissan, had taken delivery of a new 2016 LEAF SV, with the larger 30 kWh battery pack. I therefore called the general manager, Rhett Prows, to ask if he would please allow me to take it on a short test drive so that I could post a review with my impressions. He graciously agreed, and I arrived at the dealership at about mid-afternoon.

The 2016 LEAF was charged up, but not to 100%. I wanted to take some LEAFStat readings with a full charge, so I plugged it in and took a few photos before starting the test drive. You can see below on the left its window sticker, to compare with an original 2011 SL on the right. I noted that, unlike my 2012 SL, this new LEAF did not have heated rear seats, fog lamps, a cargo cover, or a HomeLink transceiver —additions that I would definitely want in my car, but that are only available in the top-of-the-line SL model. Unfortunately, the latter only comes with something that I do not like or want: leather seats. I sincerely hope that, in the future, Nissan will make upholstery from animal products an option instead of mandatory in its top model.

2016 Sticklers (click to enlarge)

2011-12 Sticklers (click to enlarge)

As you can see in the new model’s window sticker, the EPA gives it a “fuel” economy rating of 112 MPGe. Since the EPA claims that there are 33.7 kWh of energy in 1 gallon of gas, this means the new model averages 3.32 miles-per-kWh. That is actually a bit less than the 2015 LEAF (3.38 mpkWh), but I am impressed that it is even that high, given the additional weight of the larger battery. And it is nonetheless significantly higher than my 2012 SL (2.94 mpkWh). Of course, I have achieved nearly double that efficiency to date, thanks to the moderate speed limits in my community, so it makes me wonder what my average would be if I had this new model...?

Another difference that I noted in the window sticker are the safety ratings. Below is a table with the specific categories:

Safety Rating		2016	2011-12
Rollover
Frontal Crash	Driver
	Passenger
Side Crash	Driver
	Passenger

Both the new LEAF and the original model achieve 4 stars for rollover crashes. However, in head-on collisions, the 2016 model now gains an extra star of protection for the driver, but loses one for the passenger. As for side impacts, the driver protection remains the same, but the new LEAF has lost two stars for passenger protection. If the total numbers mean anything, this gives the 2011-12 LEAF 22 out of 25 possible safety stars, but 20 for the 2016 model. I can only speculate as to the reasons. Perhaps putting the charger with the drivetrain under the hood, instead of in the rear, has rendered the crumple zones less effective. However, that doesn't necessarily explain why side crashes for passengers now have lower ratings. What protects the driver in such mishaps but not the companion? Are the doors reinforced with different side beams? Go figure.

There was another sticker on the windshield that I had never seen (or noticed?) before:

Family Ties (click to enlarge)

As you can see, this sticker gave percentages of where the car’s components had originated. Specifically:

• 40% - U.S./Canada
• 35% - Japan (including the motor and gearbox)
• Remaining 25% - UNKNOWN (Korea? China? Mexico? Europe?)

I suppose that the largest percentage makes it possible for Nissan to claim that the LEAF is “made in the USA”...?

After charging for nearly an hour, I decided not to wait any longer: time to uplug and take the test drive. I transferred the OBD-II ELM327 from my 2012 LEAF to the new 2016 model and started the car. I then opened LEAFStat on my iPhone to take a reading of the 30 kWh battery, shown below on the left:

2016 Waxed (click to enlarge)

2012 Waned (click to enlarge)

I was impressed to see that the pack registered 351 GIDs with a 97% charge! I have heard that a brand new 24 kWh battery, charged to 100%, starts out with 281 GIDs, so I will speculate that a 30 kWh pack might register at least 361 GIDs with a full charge. Compare that readout with yesterday’s results from my own 2012 Leaf on the right, with a 100% charge, but at only 75.06% capacity SOH (‘S’tate ‘O’f ‘H’ealth). Pitiful!

What is perplexing is the 2016 capacity SOH shows 124.28%. That can’t be right...!?! I suspect that the LEAFStat software is to blame, and needs to be upgraded for the new 2016 models. Specifically, the current version of LEAFStat determines SOH by dividing the Ahr by 66.25 (the amount in a brand new 24 kWh battery). For example:

• My 2012 LEAF SL: 49.73 Ahr / 66.25 Ahr = 75.06% —exactly what my SOH reading shows above.

• The 2016 LEAF SV: 82.34 Ahr / 66.25 Ahr = 124.28% —exactly what its SOH reading shows above.

Perhaps an upgrade of LEAFStat should subsequently set the benchmark for a fully charged 30 kWh battery at 82.34 Ahr —which would give a readout of 100% SOH.

The following photos verify that, when I started the car, the battery was indeed at 97%, shown in the center display of the dashboard. I was curious to compare the different range guess’timates among the D, Eco, and B drive modes, since my LEAF only has D and Eco. In the first row below, you can see that, in D mode, the Guess-o-Meter showed 119 miles of range without climate control, and 98 miles with it on. That is a whopping 21 mile difference, which struck me as excessive, given the 44°F temperature. Then again, it is true that the car had been sitting idle for days on a shaded side of the building, as you can see in the photo at the top of the page. Perhaps its battery and motor were still much colder than the outside air.

(click to enlarge any photo below)

Drive Mode	Climate Control OFF	Climate Control ON
D
D + Eco

In D + Eco mode, shown in the second row above, the range increased to 126 without climate control (7 more miles), and 103 without climate control (only 5 more miles). Still, a range that high with a 97% charge is impressive: nearly 20 miles farther than the EPA “official” rating. Whether one could really achieve that range has yet to be seen, but I would be willing to wager that it would be possible if the circumstances matched Driving Scenario 4 (EPA LA4 Test Cycle) that Nissan described for the original LEAF. Of course, it goes without saying that such ranges will diminish with time and miles, as the battery loses capacity at the rate suggested by the new 90 month/100,000 miles warranty for the 30 kWh pack.

What struck me as odd was that, when I then shifted into B + Eco, there was no difference from D + Eco, as shown in the following row, with or without climate control. I thought that B stood for “braking,” i.e., it would increase regenerative braking, which should in turn increase range, as less energy would be lost when slowing down.

Drive Mode	Climate Control OFF	Climate Control ON
B + Eco

Not according to the GOM display. Then again, no regen circles in the power gauge were highlighted yet. Since regen is disabled with a nearly full charge, maybe this was why the GOM wasn’t altering its range guess’timate. (Readers will recall that one of my major complaints with the 2014 model was that only allowing a 100% charge supressed regen.) Perhaps I would have to drain the battery down lower to be able to see a difference in range with B mode.

Time to hit the road! I settled in, buckled up, put the LEAF in gear, snaked my way through the crowded lot, and headed for a backroad only a block from the dealership, knowing that it was typically uncongested, with little traffic.

As I fully expected, in general the 2016 LEAF drove just like my 2012, but with only a few, hardly noticeable differences:

• One criticism that I’ll state right up front is that I loathe foot pedal emergency brakes. They clutter the footwell, are ugly, a throwback to cars decades ago, and frankly a nuisance. C’mon Nissan, if you’re not going to retain the nifty electronic parking brake like in my LEAF, at least replace it with a manual handle that you can pull up on the center console.

• The dashboard in front of the driver has the same layout, although the regen bubbles glow green —instead of the same white hue as the power bubbles, like in my LEAF. I like that touch, because it makes it easier to know if the bubbles are showing regen or power with a cursory glance at the display.

• I also like being able to toggle the information display to the percent-of-charge remaining. This is much more accurate and useful than the 12 charge bars on the right. I had hoped that this feature would be added to my LEAF with the P3227 software upgrade. I had also hoped that the upgrade would alter the CarWings authorization screen, so that I would only have to enable it once-per-month instead of every time I started the car. In both instances... my hopes were in vain. Owners of newer LEAFs are fortunate to have those features.

  By the way, if I may digress momentarily, I must say that I am very unhappy with the transition from CarWings to NissanConnect EV. The automaker has lost all my LEAF’s data prior to the switch on September 29, and cannot restore it —more than three-and-a-half years’ worth of records lost! This is a painful disaster which has interrupted and undermined my efforts to keep accurate track of my LEAF’s performance. Nor do I like the look of the new NissanConnect EV web pages: they seem more spartan, cheaper, and frankly uglier than with CarWings, and no longer even plot miles-per-kWh in the energy graph with decimals —only whole numbers! What good is that? Shame on whatever software firm Nissan hired to handle this transition, for they have done a lousy job. They should have thoroughly tested the update with backup copies of owners’ data before ever going live with the new interface. Compared to similar products from, say, Tesla, NissanConnect is a step backwards, embarrassingly inferior.

• Back to the test drive, I have the impression that the 2016 LEAF is not as quick off the line from a dead stop as my 2012. When you romp on the accelerator, you probably won’t “chirp” the tires, but you will still smoothly and quickly gain speed. Once you are moving, the power is as responsive and seamless as ever, allowing you to surge past slower vehicles in short order.

• During the test drive, I never noticed one occasional quirk in my own LEAF, in which the brakes will unexpectedly “grab,” especially when regen has been deactivated. The 2016 LEAF’s brakes were predictably responsive, slowing down and stopping with a consistent amount of foot pressure, with or without regen.

• Perhaps it was my imagination, but the 2016 seemed just a tad quieter than my 2012. It is not as if my LEAF is “noisy” by any stretch of the earlobe, but the 2016 struck me as even slightly more “silent.” I remember that newer models have a different, better insulated liner in the roof, so perhaps that has something to do with the decibel level, but I suspect that perhaps Nissan is also putting more sound absorbing materials in the doors and chassis.

• I also noticed that the steering is a smidgeon stiffer, particularly at higher speeds when changing lanes. I like the effortless feel of my 2012 steering, but I heard that some owners deemed it too squishy, so perhaps Nissan gave the wheel a little more resistence to placate them. Still, the difference was negligible, and I would be more than happy with the newer setting as well.

• The heated seat for the driver warmed up faster, and to a more noticeable temperature, than in my LEAF. Conversely, the heated steering wheel didn’t seem as toasty as mine, or perhaps it now heats up more slowly and the test drive was too short for it to reach maximum warmth.

• I saw that the touchscreen was a bit wider, with a different initial display. As usual, I brought up the “energy” display to monitor power and regen while driving. I didn’t have time to explore the other screens thoroughly, but I got the impression that the buttons on the home screen led to similar functions as in my LEAF.

• After draining enough battery to highlight at least the first regen circle, I drove to a hill that I could descend while shifting to different modes. Like in my LEAF, Eco added a bit more regen, while also giving the throttle more play, i.e., you have to push down farther to engage full power. I did not notice, however, that B added more regen when in Eco, although maybe just a bit without Eco.

As the following photos clarify, when I arrived back at the dealership, I had drained 8% of the battery, lost 1 charge bar, and driven 10.8 miles. Since I’d gained a second regen circle, I again tried to determine what difference B mode would make in the GOM’s estimates.

You can see in the first row below that D mode now showed 6 fewer miles of range without climate control, yet 2 more miles of range with it on than when I started. The difference with climate control was thus only 12 fewer miles, rather than the original 21 up above. My guess is that those changes were because I had warmed the car up, even though the temperature had dropped by 1°F. As for B mode, once again it did not have any effect on range. In B mode (second row below), the GOM remained the same as in D mode, with or without climate control.

Drive Mode	Climate Control OFF	Climate Control ON
D
B

As for D + Eco mode in the first row below, even though I’d driven 10.8 miles, it now showed 119 miles without climate control compared to 126 when I started (7 fewer miles), and 106 miles with it on compared to 103 originally (a gain of 3 miles). Sounds good to me! And once again, shifting into B + Eco (second row below), the readouts were identical to D + Eco. B mode made no difference whatsoever in the GOM guess’timates.

Drive Mode	Climate Control OFF	Climate Control ON
D + Eco
B + Eco

My conclusion is that, if I owned the car, I’d simply ignore B mode, and drive in D + Eco all the time, just like I do now. It seems obvious that B and Eco merely engage the very same level of regen. The reason the GOM guesses more range with Eco, however, is because the mode also reduces how much power is going into climate control and the accelerator pedal. The software simply doesn’t bother to estimate how many more miles the increase in regen may or may not add —in either Eco or B.

I wish it did. After all, nobody would dispute that an increase in regenerative braking likewise increases range. Yes, Eco often shows 10 more miles or range, but I wish that B would at least show 1 or 2. I guess Nissan figured the difference was so negligible, that it wasn’t worth additional lines of code to display it.

It is too bad, because I had hoped "B" would increase regen even more than Eco, perhaps even to allow nearly one-foot driving. Not so. In short, since B mode doesn’t budge the GOM with or without Eco engaged, I’d just stick with the latter to maximize range.

After all, range is the main attraction of the 30 kWh battery in the new SV and SL models. How I would love to have that many more miles per charge in my LEAF! Unfortunately, Nissan has stated that the new pack cannot be retrofitted into earlier LEAFs, even though its W x L x H dimensions are the very same. ¡Mierda!To say I am disappointed would be a gross understatement.

Yes, I’m smitten with the increased range of the 2016 SV and SL models, but... not enough to tempt me to trade mine in. My deteriorated capacity will no longer allow me to take the day trips I used to enjoy, but at least my LEAF can still get me anywhere I need to go around town. I’ll just live with that limitation until there are 200+ mile EVs available at an affordable price, hopefully in another 2 to 3 years.